Thousands of 35mm Slides Rescued from the dumpster

[JayC]

I was dumping stuff at the recycling yard and inside one of the big dumpsters was an enormous amount of slides. Thousands of them. They were mostly dumped freely in there, but there was a bin I could grab by leaning over and tipping my body down into the dumpster. It was all I could pull out. Someone must have cleaned a house after a death and had no use for all the slides.

The bin I pulled out seemed to be mostly vacation photos: Danali National Park, several places in Mexico, etc. I sifted through for a couple hours, picking out the slides that caught my attention. The slides I scanned, and uploaded to flickr, may be all that remain of this person's photographic memories.

Here is a couple. The rest are on flickr here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jaychadney/albums/72157659867591578


Oaxaca State Dances by Jay Chadney, on Flickr


Maza House, Mexico by Jay Chadney, on Flickr


Mt. St. Helens Eruption 3 by Jay Chadney, on Flickr

 

[FrankS]

Interesting, thanks!

Sad as well.

 

[wjlapier]

Mt St Helens one is definitely a keeper.

Odd.

 

[f16sunshine]

Good on you Jay! Thanks for sharing this.

 

[thart2009]

I like these two from your find (from Flickr).. Fun stuff!

Bisbee, AZ by Jay Chadney, on Flickr


St. Louis by Jay Chadney, on Flickr

 

[xayraa33]

1970s American cars were so huge, and so were 1970s bell-bottom trousers.

Nice find though.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Honorable act!

 

[Timmyjoe]

I must be a voyeur at heart because I love these kinds of stories. This kind of thing and "found film". Getting to see things that someone, at some time in their life, felt was important enough to point a camera at and take a picture. It tells you so much about them as a person and what they valued, or what got them excited about life.

Good job Jay.

Especially loved the St. Helens pic as we used to live in SE Portland.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Great story Jay and maybe the photographer has passed away and his family just pitched his photographs. Good that you saved them.

 

[Sarcophilus Harrisii]

Do we have a thread yet for "found slides"? Perhaps we should.

 

[fireblade]

....Excellent

 

[Rayt]

You should get a medal Jay. I ought to will my thousands of sheets to you 🙂.

 

[Keith]

Now if this was a hollywood movie plot at some stage you will find something in that slide collection that connects it to a dastardly crime from the sixties or seventies that has to this point gone unsolved! 😀

 

[grouchos_tash]

When I was at Uni a girl came back from a visit to America with a box of slides she found, they were someone's family and holiday photos. I found them so interesting! It was a shame we had no way of knowing who the family were.

Thanks for sharing these!

Gary